Let no Christian then stray from this faith, which alone is the Christian one; nor let any one, when he has been made to feel
ashamed to 97say that we become righteous through our own selves, without the grace of God working this in us,—because he sees, when such
an allegation is made, how unable pious believers are to endure it,—resort to any subterfuge on this point, by affirming that
the reason why we cannot become righteous without the operation of God’s
grace is this, that He gave the law, He instituted its teaching, He commanded its precepts of good. For there is no doubt
that, without His assisting grace, the law is “the letter which killeth;” but when the life-giving spirit is present, the
law causes that to be loved as written within, which it once caused to be feared as written without.